


BOUND

by Anne_Fairchild



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Comfort, Love, M/M, musings, retrospection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 03:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18241451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Fairchild/pseuds/Anne_Fairchild
Summary: As a counterpoint to Reflections, Riario muses on how Leonardo has changed him and what he means to him.





	BOUND

How strange it is to consider that I had been completely bound to the Church from my birth until I met him, yet from the moment I met him I began to feel those bindings loosen. Over time, they gradually began to tighten again, drawing me to him instead. It happened so slowly, I wasn’t aware of it for a long time. And how I fought it when I began to realize!

I envied him for his freedom while I marveled at what such freedom could do for his imagination. My own will, as well as the imagination I might have had, was crushed early on. I was born to serve the Church and the Holy Father. Thoughts of my own were simply unnecessary to those who would wield me as a weapon. I could not, did not question.

I believed myself cleverer, bolder and of superior morality to the cocky, flashy new _artista_ the corrupt Medicis had adopted to aid Florence in her rivalry of Rome. In truth I was none of those things when I acted against him, and had he wanted me dead there had been opportunities. The same could be said of me of course. Papal assassin though I was, I never wanted him dead, not even at the beginning. He fascinated me; he always will.

At first of course I thought to use him to help me obtain the Book of Leaves. It was on my voyage to the New World and through what befell us there that I began to question my life. The Machiavelli boy may have learned from me, but I also learned from him what loyalty to another human, a friend, was as opposed to zeal for an impossible ideal that would not feel gratitude or care if you returned at all, especially if you failed.

I feared him, mistrusted him - thought I hated him - but I could not ignore him. I had never encountered another like him. Willful, stubborn, irreverent and dismissive of all I held sacred. Yet if he sought to thwart me in winning our games, he never discounted me as unworthy and I took satisfaction from that. He never assumed I could not win if he faltered for an instant.

Games. Yes, we found each other through games of strategy and strength - and also a certain degree of Fate. For all our posturing, there was always, even at our first meeting, a liking between us. I sought to deny it of course. I could not afford to like someone! It gave me an Achilles heel I had no wish for.

Yet like him I did, as well as envy him his friends and his freedom. It was that freedom which pushed me to follow him. If I rationalized then that my journey in search of the Book of Leaves was for the Church, I see now it was as much or more my own need to test my wings. I was goaded and challenged to make my own decisions, not for something or someone else, but for myself. When I was with him I was more free of the Church than I had ever been. It was frightening at times, but mostly it was exhilarating.

Then there were the times he did not abandon me when he so easily could have. He owed me nothing at all, in fact he and his friends had good reason to leave me to my fate. But he knew that finding the Book of Leaves was important to me - that I believed in its power just as he did, and that we both hoped for a better world if we found it - so he drew me in until the lines were blurred between being seen as the enemy or being considered one of them, if only briefly. He needed my help, but I also felt that in some way he simply wanted me there too, as an equal to him in ways his friends were not. That he might think of me as such was a powerful enticement.

When he proved to be the cause of Zita’s death I was bitterly angry at him, but my pain at her loss outweighed my anger. He recognized my right to hate him then. He allowed me to strike him. But he also knew my agony and did not dismiss it. He refused to leave me behind in the Vault of Heaven or in the jungle, knowing my death would be horrible beyond even my own tortuous methods or imaginings. What was I to make of that? In my mind and to his face I used the word allies. I think he understood that I couldn’t yet admit to friend.

It was when I couldn’t abide seeing him be put through what the Enemies had done to me - when I simply couldn’t bear to see his pain - that I understood at least a part of ‘friend.’ And when he suffered my drugged abuse of him and absorbed the horror that I’d become and still wanted only to help me, I understood the rest.

After that we continued to dance around each other, physically and emotionally, as trust built. He drew me closer by not attempting to do so. The times he would not, did not touch me, and the times he did - he knew, without me saying anything, what I needed. It is what still surprises me most, that without me saying anything, or only very little, he knows my head and my heart and knows what to do and say to make me feel safe and loved.

My life has been lived without anyone or anywhere I could run to when I needed a safe haven. He is my haven now. I feel safe and at peace when he is near; indeed, I am not at ease when he is not with me. A look, a touch is enough to calm my nerves.

It took us awhile to get here, however. I felt he used touch to intimidate, as I used it, and he certainly could, and did, at times. But when he knows you and doesn’t feel threatened by you, for him touch is affection and reassurance. I was sure I needed neither, until I was on my way to the New World. Zita, forever bless her, taught me what I needed to begin to accept him in my life. Without her wisdom and her feelings for me, I may never have opened myself at all, to anyone. She opened the door. I miss her still.

He has always been gentle with me, even when he had no reason to be. I once viewed it as weakness, but now I know it is strength. He’s never sought to cause me physical pain. He is, at heart, a healer as much as a visionary, but I don’t believe he will be remembered that way. It doesn’t matter how others remember him, I know he has saved me from danger and from myself many times, and will no doubt continue to do so in future.

If my most difficult lesson has been trust, the one which has both frightened me the most and given me my greatest pleasure is touch; his touch of course. I knew I was different than those around me when it came to my relationships with others. The only way I knew to be was at once defensive and offensive. I did not touch unless it was to threaten, and no one dared touch me, except Zita. He seemed to understand this lack of ease in me, both my wariness and my clumsiness. He accepted me as I was and did not seek to change me. I was not defective in his eyes, I was only myself.

I began to associate his touch with the trust I was gaining in him. As I understood he would not betray my confessions and failings I ceased to fear him, and that meant I also no longer feared his every touch. When I began to seek that touch, to allow human comfort and care to reach me, I knew he had changed me. I was at last happy to receive his comfort and to sleep in his arms, and I was pleased when he wanted to sleep In mine.

I had known sex as a weapon. In my youth it was forced upon me. As Captain General I used it sparingly to control others. To enjoy sexual pleasure meant giving yourself over to someone, even if only briefly, and I couldn’t. The sex I enjoyed with Zita had much less to do with lust than it did with the peace she brought me lying in her arms afterwards; it was the afterwards I needed most.

He let me discover my own path to intimacy. He let me jump off that cliff, he never thought of pushing me. I found that with him there was peace and joy in the act itself and I no longer had to maintain control. Losing control to his voice and his body was the greatest peace of all.

I asked him once what he wanted from me, what I could give him. He held me close, and in my ear he whispered “Heal. Grow. Love me.”

I hope to spend the rest of my life doing all those things.

**Author's Note:**

> Why does Riario have ‘more’ to say about why he loves Leo than vice versa? Because I’m just in his head more. He’s easier for me to express. I have added a few lines to Reflections here and there at the time I’m posting this, but not a lot. Leo just wasn’t as forthcoming as Riario.


End file.
